Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Pirate Bay Moves To Island Of St. Martin

For the second time in a week, The Pirate Bay has found a new home for its popular torrent website. A complaint issued Tuesday by Swedish prosecutors threatened the Icelandic domain, forcing the file-sharing pirates to take harbor in the Caribbean island of St. Martin with a new .sx domain name.

Last Thursday, The Pirate Bay left Greenland when the domain registry threatened to seize the .gl website to avoid any potential connection with illegal activity. The site moved to Iceland, where many thought The Pirate Bay would be at least temporarily safe due to Iceland’s stance towards Internet freedom policies. The Icelandic domain registry even told TorrentFreak that it would not take action against The Pirate Bay unless specifically ordered to do so by Icelandic authorities.

The Icelandic government has not made any order, but The Pirate Bay moved to avoid new action from Swedish prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad, who filed an official complaint on behalf of several movie, music and publishing companies. The complaint calls for the seizure of two of Pirate Bay's Swedish domains (thepiratebay.se and piratebay.se) as well as the company's new Icelandic domain, claiming jurisdiction because the owner, Fredrik Neij, is a Swedish national.

The court has not yet granted Ingblad’s request, but The Pirate Bay has taken defensive maneuvers by moving to St. Martin, a small island 190 miles east of Puerto Rico with only about 78,000 residents.

The action comes the same day as news broke that a co-founder of The Pirate Bay, Gottfrid Svartholm, was questioned in prison by Swedish police in regards to a new criminal investigation against the torrent site. There is no word yet if this is related to Ingblad’s complaint.

The Pirate Bay case has become something of a cat-and-mouse game. Ingblad will likely file a new complaint against the .sx site using the same argument, and The Pirate Bay will continue registering domains in new countries.